The end of a semester, the end of Thursday Night Meditation on Campus until next month, the end of watching the goldfish dart to the surface of the little backyard pond, frozen over now, the end of my husband's flowering garden, put to bed a few weeks ago, where now, only the fall blooming cammilias still burst dark pink without care, as if only for the discreet benefit of one another.  

The end of time with my Studio assistant A, who was only here for the Fall, and is following more work west, in an old black car that may be seeing its end….

The end of hanging beautiful work in the gallery, though the promise of new beautiful work to exhibit already waits.  The end of firing the kilns, washing aprons, purchasing supplies, running up to Community Aid to purchase used sheets to be torn for rags in the Painting and Printmaking Studios.  
Who slept on these sheets, now used to clean brushes and wipe etching plates?
Who made love on them, who died, who was born?
What ended here and what began?

These are the never-ending cycles, magnificent and trivial, that mark my days, and I bow to the energy that rises to meet each task as if newly invented, newly created.  Indeed, yes, newly generated.  From past energies of which I cannot conceive, the numberless people who have gone before me, or who still stir the air around me, letting me sip it in like honey, and then unwind my own version of what they gave me, for someone else to pick up, a bright thread at someone else's finger tip.

Some gifts are obvious, most are not.
All have inconceivable beginnings, no boundaries, no end.

Yesterday's snow is already creeping into the landscape and each footfall crumbles its crust to nourish what will emerge in the Spring, to nourish the living and the dead.

Namu Amida Butsu!